I've picked the time period when America was at it's peak economic performance. The idea that our economy would collapse if we returned to policies from when our country was at the peak of it's economic strength is pure 1% propaganda. Nothing more.
Clearly you attribute the economic strength of that era on taxation rates being the highest rates in the history of the U.S. You must believe that because there would be no other positive or logical reason to call for such incredibly high rates of taxation unless it would bring economic prosperity now that the U.S. desperately needs it.
So, how would rolling back rates of taxation to their historically highest levels ever turn the economy around?
From world war 2 until the present is what is considered the "modern era". It's when we were at the peak of our success under a comparable tax system. There is nothing wrong with using that time period.
From WWII until the present is when we were at the peak of our success under a comparable tax system? Maybe you did not notice it but that old tax system died when Ole Ronnie became president. The great thing about that too was after the death of the old tax system far more federal tax revenues poured into the government coffers than when the historically highest tax rates were in effect.
Something you absolutely refuse to accept is that the times, the economic climate, the economic conditions, and more, were all extremely different in the era you point at and claim is proof that when taxation is at it's historic high the economy will be the strongest. Your position is untenable once the massive number of differences are factored in, which you refuse to do.
The nation for the most part thrived economically in the era you refer to and it did so for many reasons. Having the highest rate of taxation in U.S. history was not one of them. It thrived in spite of the historically high rates, not because of them. Only the clueless and those who have drunk the liberal Kool-Aid would ever believe that the economic boom years were the result of historically high rates of taxation.
I'm not going to go back and compare tax rates to times when people paid their taxes in livestock. It's absurd to even suggest we should.
But you will go back to a different era from the current one when virtually everything was so different from today that debts might as well have been paid for with livestock. That makes a whole lot of sense.
It is more than just evident that you know as little about economic success and economic growth as you do about taxation in. 1945 to 1960 are called The Affluent Society. There was good economic success and growth. 1960 to 1970 was all economic peaks and valleys but overall there was no upward trend by the end of the decade. The first half of the 60's saw a fast sharp economic gain, but from the middle of the decade to the end the economy bounced up and down with hardly any net increase. It wasn't a true economic flat-line decade, but in the end the results were virtually the same as if it had been a flat-line decade. 1970 to 1982 was only slightly better. Again there were peaks and valleys but the period of time ended very slightly higher than when it began. 1982 to 1987 saw an incredible upward economic boom that in those five years matched the upward movement of the 1945 - 1960 boom. (By chance that was when Ole' Ronnie pushed for massively lower rates of taxation, and got them. So, thanks to his lowering taxes the economy shot up as much in five years as the previous equal economic boom that took fifteen years to achieve while the historically highest rates of taxation were in effect.) 1987 to 1991 there was a dip due to the Savings & Loan disaster, and by 1991 the economy was back to where it had been when the bottom fell out due to the S&L debacle. 1991 to 1995 there were modest economic gains. 1995 to 2000 the economy grew by slightly more than half of what it grew between 1945 - 1960 and 1982 - 1987. From 2000 to 2007 the economy bounced up and down but finishing slightly higher. From 2007 until now the economy has been on a downward spiral.
So, your claimed economic boom years where taxation rates were at historic highs, economic success you clearly attribute to historically high rates of taxation, really only lasted for fifteen years, during The Affluent Society of 1945 until 1960. The next true economic boom was the Reagan boom of 1982 to 1987, after the rate of taxation had been dramatically dropped.
So your glory years were much shorter than you portray them to be and while they outlasted the Reagan boom they did not outperform the Reagan boom. A boom that occurred with dramatically lower rates of taxation.
Oh, before you respond to that with the weak worn out liberal propaganda about how Ole' Ronnie was responsible for large increases in the national debt keep two things in mind. One, Congress controls the nation's purse strings and Ole' Ronnie had a Democratically controlled Congress to work with, and it spent money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. It outspent the massive increase in collected tax revenues. Second, One of the things that killed off the economic boom of the 60's was when LBJ (for all you youngsters out there LBJ stand for President Lyndon Baines Johnson. It's not Spanish for a blowjob) found himself in a terrible money pinch thanks to his War in Vietnam and the massive spending increases from his Great Society he did two things. He raided the then existing Social Security Trust Fund and transferred the funds into the general funds, and by doing so created the problem that many presidents have faced since with Social Security sapping the nation and teetering on insolvency, and he also raised taxes, and by doing so he killed economic growth deader than disco.
There is another famous parallel to the economic death caused by LBJ raising taxes. FDR became president in 1932, during The Great Depression. By 1937 the economy was turning around, it was improving. It was no where near back to what it had been but there were more jobs and things were getting better. That was until FDR raised taxes and turned the recovery into a recession within a depression and it took the full employment caused not by FDR but by WWII instead to start to bring the nation back economically.
So, since you like historical examples so much there is one historical example of an economic boom being halted in it's tracks thanks to increasing taxation and also an example of a recovery not only stopped in it's tracks but also reversed and made worse thanks to increasing taxation during an economic recovery.
And to think you actually want taxes increased! WOW!